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When Sean closed the door of his hotel room, the reassuring click of the lock gave him an odd sense of relief. With a deep sigh he leant against the wooden surface and started gliding slowly down towards the floor. He was painfully aware that he was being a little overdramatic, but for the first time in a very long day there was no one around to watch or judge him, so he allowed himself a bit of pathos. The fact that he was pretty wasted didn’t hurt either.
He had never been a big fan of award shows anyway. Acting was his job and he preferred playing made-up characters enormously to standing in the spotlight simply as Sean Bean, himself. But when they asked him to present Viggo with some lifetime achievement award he just couldn’t refuse. In hindsight the whole ceremony had been kind of a blur; he didn’t remember much about both of their speeches, besides Viggo talking about Aragorn changing Boromir’s diapers in the upcoming Hobbit movie (a mental image that had made Sean laugh, even though he was already starting to repress it).
With his head still rested against the surprisingly comfortable hotel room door, Sean was holding onto the bottle of whiskey that Viggo had given him at the ceremony — and which they had started drinking from right there on stage. A few pints in the hotel lobby had followed, together with remembering the good old times back in New Zealand. Sean would normally be the first one to admit that it actually had been a very rough and exhausting part of his life, but being near Viggo instantly brought back a sense of magic that was difficult to explain. With a little help from Doom Bar they had reminisced about fighting against invisible monsters in the middle of the night, sabotaging Orlando’s canoe or Viggo rugby-tackling Sean to the ground out of nowhere. Eventually Viggo had brought up one of his favorite stories: That one time he had kissed Billy Boyd.
“Yeah, I’m still jealous of him.” Sean had talked without thinking twice about it. He had instantly hoped that Viggo would just laugh, brush it off, carry on … but he hadn’t. He had just been staring at Sean with those green eyes, inscrutable like a sphinx.
Their conversation had continued eventually, but Sean hadn’t been able to fight a certain sense of awkwardness. He avoided Viggo’s gaze and steered the subject of conversation into harmless small-talk territory. Around midnight they had both agreed that it had been a very long day, and yes, they should probably go to bed soon. Sean had left Viggo behind in the lobby, but he could still feel his eyes following him all the way to the elevator.
Sean held on to the whiskey bottle even tighter and let his head bump softly against the door a few times. He had lost his cool and had ruined a perfectly fine evening, but there was something that annoyed him even more. His confession of jealousy hadn’t just been a slip of his tongue. Some small, foolish part deep down inside of him had hoped that Viggo would play along. Sean couldn’t help but cringe as he was reflecting on his own clumsiness and non-subtlety.
His brooding was disrupted by a knock on the door. Sean instantly leapt to his feet — even though the knock had been quiet and discrete, the unexpected noise right over his head had made his heart race. “Who’s there?” he said with a slight tremble in his voice.
It wasn’t Viggo’s voice that answered. “Mr Bean, I have a message for you.” Sean opened the door very slowly and squinted at the bellboy who was standing in the hallway, an envelope in his hand. “I’m sorry, Mr Bean … this was handed in at the reception. They said it was urgent.”
Realizing that he was still clutching the whiskey bottle, Sean took the envelope with his left hand, gave the bellboy a small, approving nod and closed the door maybe a little too firmly. This better wasn’t a letter written by a fan who had seen him entering the hotel or even witnessed his conversation with Viggo in the lobby. He wasn’t in the mood for autograph requests in the middle of the night. Of course there was also another possibility — but he didn’t dare getting his hopes up as he was ripping the paper open.
Take the elevator to the basement. Bring your booze. – V
His heart started racing even more. Why on Earth would Viggo want him to go down there? Anyway, Sean didn’t have much time to think as his feet basically started moving on their own. He didn’t even dare to breathe until the elevator doors had closed behind him. Luckily his descent wasn’t interrupted by anyone on the lower levels. As the elevator finally went underground, Sean was still holding onto the whiskey bottle that had become this night’s constant companion.
He couldn’t suppress a small gasp as the metal doors finally revealed the entrance to an underground spa area. For now he was just relieved that he wouldn’t end up being cornered by a Viggo imposter in a dirty hotel cellar. He went past the changing cubicles and entered a room with colorful walls, comfortable chairs and relaxing music playing over loudspeakers. On a small table in the middle was another envelope that took Sean only a second to rip apart.
Lock the door. Take off your clothes. – V
The straightforwardness of this made Sean blush a little, but he turned the key of the door behind him and started undressing. He kept on his boxers though, as he still couldn’t fully comprehend what was happening and kind of feared that it was going to turn out to be some hidden camera prank.
His footsteps seemed awfully loud to him as he kept wandering the deserted spa. When he turned a corner he finally arrived at his destination: a lush, circular pool illuminated by purple lights – and there he was, with his back to the edge of the pool, resting his arms on the wet tiles, with his hair pushed back and a knowing smirk on his face. From the looks of it Viggo hadn’t packed his swimming trunks either.
“I thought my instructions were pretty clear.” Viggo pointed at Sean’s boxers with a nod of his head. “You said you were jealous of Billy.” He kicked himself off the edge of the pool and swam a few strokes towards Sean. “Don’t make me jealous of Lady Chatterley.”
Sean grinned, put down the bottle of whiskey and happily complied.